January 23, 2006

MK Mickey Eitan Proposes a Law

This past week, Likud MK Mickey Eitan tabled a bill of legislation that would place a period of “freeze” on the Attorney-General and the State’s Chief Prosecutor before they may be, if at all, appointed to the Supreme Court bench. The immediate persons affected by the bill, if it is adopted, would be, respectively, Elyakim Rubinstein and Edna Arbel.

If one is looking for a moment in history when this bill began to ferment in Eitan’s mind, one could possibly start with May 2, 1996. On that day, a meeting was convened in the Jerusalem. In attendance were Michael Ben-Yair, then Attorney-General and other senior Justice Ministry officials including Edna Arbel, the State’s Chief Prosecutor, Moshe Lador, Jerusalem District Attorney and his assistant, Liora Chavilio, Talia Sasson, head of the Special Section for Anti-Incitement and Noam Sohlberg, aide to the Attorney-General who later was appointed to the District Court in Jerusalem

In mid-October 1999, three and a half years later, Eitan attempted to quote from the minutes of that conference on a television talk show but was stymied. Elyakim Rubinstein declared the document classified and instructed the show’s producer that it was illegal to read from it. Later, he had a court gag-order issued. Journalist Yoav Yitzhak appealed this decision to the High Court of Justice and won. Justice Daliah Dorner termed the document “humiliating” but not of any security worth. Rubinstein wiped egg off his face and then the public was allowed to know what went on at the meeting.

The meeting’s agenda was what was to be done with the criminal complaint made by Israel’s Media Watch against TV’s Channel One reporter Eitan Oren charging him with being engaged in acts of deceit and violating public trust.

The complaint was made in response to Oren’s airing of a swearing-in ceremony which showed several youngsters, led by Avishai Raviv, swearing over the graves at Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem to kill non-Jews and even Jews to prevent the continuation of the Oslo process. The Shamgar Commission of Inquiry had sharply attacked the Raviv operation. Its report noted that the ceremony was a “staged play”. An open-minded reading of the document supports the claim that there was collusion between the Israel’s most senior judicial officials and GSS agents who also were present to subvert the due process of law and who strongly pressured Ben-Yair and Arbel not to press charges.

The minutes of their deliberations make any true democrat’s hair stand on end. Despite admissions by those present that the ceremony was not “authentic”, that it was “was staged”, and that the video contained “inauthentic portions”, no charge sheet was ever drawn up. Why?

The answer to that is in the fear of the three Shabak agents for they were there to protect themselves from the possibility of Avishai Raviv, their agent provocateur, from taking the witness stand. The file against Oren was indeed closed but Israel’s Media Watch was informed of this decision only in May 1999, three years later.

The document points to gross negligence by the Head of the GSS, Carmi Gillon and others, in running Raviv. Moreover, the deliberations show a crass callousness towards fundamental individual civil rights.

There seems to have been a conspiracy in that the GSS sought, through Raviv, to delegitimatize the nationalist and religious opposition to the Oslo process. Raviv ran wild and the media was more than happy to oblige and took him from the fringes and put him right up-front and center.

But those who participated in that meeting, including Arbel as well as Rubinstein who attempted an ex post facto cover-up, corrupted justice and undermined democracy. They subverted the rule of law.

Persons such as these do not belong in the black robes of Supreme Court Justices.